I've been working as the Social Media Editor and a staff writer at Forbes since October 2011. Prior to that, I worked as a freelance writer and contributor here. On this blog, I focus on futurism, cutting edge technology, and breaking research. Follow me on Twitter - @thealexknapp. You can email me at aknapp@forbes.com

Is It Ethical to Make Animals As Smart As People?

A few weeks ago, there was a rather fascinating debate on the internet, sparked by the film Rise of the Planet of the Apes, over the ethics of whether its ethical to “uplift” apes and other animals — that is, use whatever means we have to make those animals as intelligent as humans. On the pro-uplift side I’ve read essays by Kyle Munkittrick, George Dvorsky and others. On the anti-uplift side are essays by Paul Raven, Dale Carrico and others. I’ve spent the past couple of weeks letting the debate roll around in my head, and I think I have to come down pretty firmly on the “against” side. This is because of the basic shape of what we know about the biology of intelligence leads me to believe that there’s no way to research uplift without causing a lot of suffering in the very animals the pro-uplift side is claiming to help.

The Basics of Uplift Research

One thing that annoys me about some of the arguments I’ve been reading on the pro-uplift side is the oversimplification of intelligence. Uplifting an animal species is going to take a lot more than just packing in a few more neurons. If there’s a way to make chimps and dolphins as intelligent as humans, that way is going to be incredibly complicated. Intelligence is polygenic – that is, there are many genes in human DNA that control intelligence. It’s not as though there are just one or two that we can just cut and paste into chimpanzee DNA. And beyond that, there is a very, very large environmental component to intelligence, as well, both in terms of external stimulation as well as hormonal and other protein interactions.

Now let’s move beyond the brain. Our intelligence is one aspect of what it means to be human, but an essential aspect of that intelligence is communication – which for humans is primarily vocal. Vocal communication for chimps is limited and we’re still working out the basics for dolphins. Parrots (which are quite smart) can handle vocal communication, though – so there’s that. We also have our hands and opposable thumbs, which chimps have, but parrots and dolphins don’t – and they’re going to need to be able to manipulate the environment in some way besides just their mouths/beaks.

Manipulation and language are obvious differences, but more subtle are differences in the physiology of intelligence. Take the human brain to body ratio – it’s significantly larger than that of chimpanzees, because our brains are about 3 times larger in volume. As a result, about 25% of the energy humans get from food goes to the brain, and about 20% of its oxygen, as well. That’s caused us to evolve a different metabolism than those other animals. Which means that when we’re uplifting these animals, it’s not enough to just adjust their brains. We have to change their skulls, their metabolism, their hormone interactions, the structure of their limbs, and everything else that is affected in the process of accomplishing those goals.

Please note that the above is a rather vast oversimplification of the physical, neurological and biochemical considerations that have to be made. In other words -uplifting another species is going to be a daunting process that will take a lot of experimental research. That’s even if it’s feasible at all – given the complexity involved, it may not be.

Is there a moral obligation to uplift other species?

Dvorsky and other pro-uplift advocates have argued that we have a moral imperative to make other species as intelligent as we are once we have the means. However, given the above, one thing that should be abundantly clear is that even if we come up with a technique to create chimps, parrots, or dolphins with human-level intelligence, we are almost certainly not going to be take any current, adult animals and uplift them. Changes as profound as those needed to make those species intelligent, from the neurological to the biochemical, are going to have to be made to the embryo, if not even before that in the egg and sperm. So what happens to the animals that are left behind? They’re almost certainly not going to be able to produce offspring with their uplifted counterparts – there’ll be too many changes. Their uplifted counterparts are likely going to be a separate, reproductively-incompatible species.

So the adults will be just as they are, living lives as they did before. Which means procreating as they did before – and that leads to a problem for uplift advocates. Namely, for example, if we uplift chimps, do we let the adults procreate? Well, letting chimps continue in an “un-uplifted” state seems to defeat the purpose of uplifting them to begin with, right? On the other hand, if we sterilize them, we’re dooming a species to extinction for no reason other than we don’t think they’re smart enough. I’d argue that we wouldn’t have the right to to sterilize them and cause them to go extinct, and I can’t think of a good argument on the other side. So now we’re trapped in a bizarre ethical paradox that begs the question of why there’s a moral obligation to uplift in the first place. Given that the alternative is to essentially doom a species to extinction, I think it’s safe to argue that an “uplift imperative” doesn’t exist.

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Alex — What about my several-decades-old plan to raise a bunch of chimpanzees in an otherwise natural habitat, but teach them lots of sign language that they are taught to pass on to their young, plus simple tool-making to build shelters? My goal was to create a second species to assist in the battle against the eventual robot apocalypse or, if it comes first, zombie apocalypse. The plan works particularly well against zombies, because they typically won’t bite/eat non-humans, giving the ape army a special added advantage.

While it is all but certain that if a primate (specifically chimp, gorilla or urangutang) would be modified, either genetically born or after birth would come with considerable anguish, probably many failed tries, a traumatized end result – I have one argument.

This hearkens back to that old question that always hovered around in my mind – anyone who has read Larry Niven might recognize the question. While I have no offspring (and this is relevant in this mind-train) “if offered a choice, would I eat tree of life?”.

Tree of life is a fictional plant that makes eaters tough, near immortal and super intelligent. It also makes all hominids that eat these roots rabid murderous machiavellan racists and sociopaths. But still, the mere chance of superintelligence, even if it would make my mind a perversion of its firmer self, I’d say yes.

Consequently, while a primate could not deliberate the same choice, I would lean on a yes. In essence, why not boost their cognition a little more intelligent, step by step? It is not as if most humans are treating treating them humanely as is.

Note that in case of the movie ‘rise of planet of the apes’ I’d be the first to send kalashnikovs and stinger missiles to the awakened primates, to aid in carving out their own territory. Hell, let the primates claim a big slice of a major continent of their choosing.

Well what if these animals are more intelligent than us? What if we’re the species that’s too stupid to realize the damage that we’re inflicting on our homes? Or how we aren’t really trying to learn the dolphin language? Or how we aren’t happy enough to swim around all day frightening sharks? What is the basis for intelligence?

Wow, there is just so much that’s wrong with this proposition. First of all, to talk about the ethics of it seems, to me, to miss a more foundational question: why do it?

It’s not about protecting animals. No one’s going to fall for that. It IS about making money by creating a new biomedical market. If these guys think they can present it as a no-risk ethical boon for animals, they are way stupider than their fancy medical/philsophical/scientific degrees and training suggests. It’s just another form of fancy derivatives and I hope to God that someone capable of regulating it does so before our biological crises get more out of hand than our financial ones. These were, after all, created by the same subset of opportunists. They profited handsomely, which is what this nascent industry, no doubt, is banking on.

I consider myself an animal rights person. Rights, though, that are gained by regulating human enterprise, educating the public and giving animals a break from us.

There is nothing wrong with them. There is something wrong with us–well, some of us.

What say we make deer crack marksmen so that they can shoot and kill hunters? Or mustangs on public land that can shoot down the helicopters that the BLM uses to round them up and sell them to slaughterhouses?

Who, exactly is it that needs to be “uplifted”?

That’s right. It’s us. And leading the pack, those overeducated, venture-capital seeking “ethicists” who probably don’t know a topi from a kudu but think they have something the animals–and the rest of us need.

Biomedical engineering isn’t the future. It isn’t going to save the future. The seeds for doing that are right here. And (sorry Monsanto) they aren’t biologically enhanced.